I can’t believe a week and a half has passed since I shot these photos, but the calendar doesn’t lie. I wanted to go to Montreal on the Friday, but we stayed in the city that night instead and pushed off on Saturday, heading eastward with no fixed itinerary except I had to return to Toronto on Sunday night and the furthest we’d probably drive would be Ottawa, where Lachlan’s friends lived and who were due to return from Scotland over the weekend. I had a look at the map and decided we would go slow, leave the 401, and explore Prince Edward County.

I had to laugh, because 17 years ago we also drove very slowly through southeastern Australia, taking two whole weeks to travel what would be 880kms along major highway — a single day’s drive. But we didn’t take the major highways then, and I decided we weren’t going to take them now.

We passed by many farms, but Lachlan was surprised to see virtually no-one in the fields. When I spotted cows (yes, cow-spotting is the new pastime these days!) I stopped the car so he could get a closer look at the breeds. I can’t even distinguish dog breeds, let alone cow breeds, so I was content to drive and take photos. In Australia, Lachlan did all the driving and mocked my navigational skills (granted, they were really lacking; I’m much better at it now!), but this time it was my turn to drive and mock his pronunciation of Canadian places. Vive le road trip!

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After more than a week of cameraphone photos, I am ready for some proper ones, aren’t you? I must be ‘at large’ again shortly, but here are a few from our weekend in Prince Edward County, which was cut rather short (for me) because I had to drive back to Toronto by myself on Sunday night after dinner to make an appointment downtown yesterday. Maybe this weekend I’ll get some time to upload more photos from the past week. For now, I leave you with scenes from the county’s main town, Picton, which calls itself Loyalist:

Here’s some proof that the sun actually did make a brief appearance over the weekend, but over the Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec.

The photo above was taken by Georges, with my camera. The other photos are by me.

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I shot this photo last night in rather blustery conditions (pelting rain and driving wind), but Georges brought his tripod and patiently waited for me to set up my camera, take some test shots, and decide when to call it quits. I called it quits after I saw this version, which is better viewed larger: View Larger On Black

Not bad, but as Georges says, my kit lens (18-55mm, the widest angle I have) is producing barrel distortion and there is some blurriness, too. True! But I didn’t have a wider lens, we were both getting soaked, and I think under the circumstances, this photo is not bad… Georges is a tough crowd! (But I think I might have convinced him that my Pentax K100D is a decent camera compared with his Canon Rebel XTi. Take that, Georges!)

I wondered while packing for this trip if it was too distracting and antisocial to bring along my computer, but Georges and I just spent the last two hours recalibrating his Apple computer display, rejigging his application preferences, and discussing geeky stuff, so it was worthwhile to bring it after all! Yay for Mac users!